22nd June World Camel Day

World Camel Day is  a day to celebrate and recognise the importance of camels, particularly their historical and ongoing significance in various cultures and arid environments. 

The date  was chosen as World Camel Day because 22nd June is the longest and hottest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, and camels thrive in such harsh and hostile environments.

It is not the longest day in Australia, but camels have been the backbone of Outback Australia for more than 150 years, bringing supplies, stories and resilience to some of the country’s most remote places.

2024 was the Year of the Camelid and I did a detailed blog post last year when we did a display tin the library to coincide with that. In a blog post, I did a comprehensive list of children's books about camels.

The only book we have added since is this Rachel Bright title.

The only book we have added since is this one by Rachel Bright and Jim Field.

International Year of Camelids: Camels

The United Nations declared 2024 the International Year of Camelids (IYC 2024). The Year will highlight how camelids are key to the livelihoods of millions of households in hostile environments across over 90 countries, particularly Indigenous Peoples and local communities. From alpacas to Bactrian camels, dromedaries, guanacos, llamas, and vicuñas, camelids contribute to food security, nutrition and economic growth as well as holding a strong cultural and social significance for communities across the world.  This short video shows us just how important camelids are to many communities. And this video will show you which camelid is which.

We are starting next term in the library with a display of camelid books. We have enough to make a fun display complete with some toys. To go with this I plan to share some of the books we will display for each of the camelids. Today there are camels. Video with facts for kids.

Fun stories:

• Cleo the Completely Fine Camel  by Wendy Meddour and Carmen Sadani

• One Camel Called Doug by Lu Fraser and Sarah Warburton

• The Wooden Camel by Wanuri Khaki and Manuela Adreani

• Azad's Camel  by Erika Pal

• Little Humpty  by Margaret Wild and Ann James

• How the Camel Got its Hump by Anna Milbourne and John Joven

• Where's Jessie?  by Janeen Brian and Anne Spudvilas

• Columbia Sneezes!  by Janeen Brian and Gabe Cunnett

• Mustara  by Rosanne Hawke and Robert Ingpen

• Jamal's Journey  by Michael Foreman

• A Man and his Camel by Jo Bertini

Coming

• The Camel who had the Hump  by Rachel Bright and Jim Field

 Short chapter books

• How the Camel Got His Hump  by Shoo Rayner

and if you can find this

• How the Camel Got His Hump  by Rudyard Kipling and Lisbeth Zwerger 

• Hairy Hezekiah  by Dick King Smith

• Sophie and the Albino Camel by Stephen Davies

Some information books:

• Camels  by Kate Riggs

• Why do Camels Have Humps?  by Debbie Vilardi

• Camels Have Humps Tell Me Why by Susan Gray

• Hoosh Camels in Australia  by Janeen Brian

• Camels Close Their Noses by Mark Oblinger

And just because:

• My Librarian is a Camel by Margriet Ruurs

• Riding on a Caravan: A Silk Road Adventure  by Laurie Krebs and Helen Cann

If you don't want to celebrate camels now, do so on World Camel Day which is June, 22nd.

Curious Creatures

 

As part of the theme 'Curious Creatures, Wild Minds' one of the displays in the library this week focussed on 'long necks'. We displayed books with animals who have long necks such as giraffes, alpacas, llamas, camels, ostriches, emus, and flamingoes together with some quiz questions to get the students talking. 

Among the books was Jo Bertini's A Man and his Camel. This is a very old picture book first published in 1996, but I have never quite brought myself to the point of withdrawing it from stock. Why? Well it fits into many themes; journeys, searches, home, deserts, camels, Tibet, Silk Road and endangered species and you are never quite sure when you'll be asked for a book. I picked it up to read while one of my Year 2 classes were doing some independent silent reading. Beside the Bactrian camel (the camel with two humps) there were other animals unknown to my students such as the musk deer, red panda, desman, otter, large mouse-eared bat, great bustard, sand gazelle, fenec fox, Crespi pelican, ibex, markhor, woolly flying squirrel and a jerboa. Yes, a multitude of curious creatures!

The man travelled from Pakistan, across the Himalayan Mountains into Kashmir, through Tibet to China, on to Mongolia,  Russia and the Volga River, on to Turkey, Syria and Lebanon, then to Israel and Egypt. From Alexandria around the Red Sea and into Saudi Arabia before going through Iraq to Iran. Next Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Samarkand, over the Kashgar Crossing, across the Pamir Mountains, down the Kunnjerab Pass and back into Pakistan. What a journey? Older students could plot this journey on a map!

The choice of vocabulary is also worth noting. There are verbs such as:  gazed; puzzled; shrugged; console; caution; dally; muster; sighed; chimed; fringe; lowed; bid; chortled; and thumped. There are descriptions:

- a melancholy reindeer whose antlers hung in sorrow-filled folds 

- floating on her back, leaf-like in the waves

- who is threading a trail to...

- in a whorl of winds and rufous feathers

- a querulous creature and prone to hysteria

- there across a mirage of woollen pyramids

- camel herd had gathered in conference

So much to explore and I haven't mentioned the illustrations. Jo Bertini is an Australian artist but unfortunately I cannot find any other picture books by her. If your library hasn't discarded it, have a look. It is full of curious creatures and Jo Bertini has a wild mind!

16th December A Donkey's Christmas

This morning when I checked in at my friend's blog: Momo Celebrating Time to Read, I saw that she has written about the donkey's view of Christmas because of this lovely book The Little Donkey. This reminded me of the year at school where one of the Year 1 teacher's favourite Christmas book was that version of the nativity told from the point of view of the donkey. It started the library staff on a mission to find other donkey books and other nativity stories told in first person from an animal's point of view. We were surprised to find that we had quite a lot of both, so the Christmas display that year ended up being about the animals at the birth of Jesus. It looked wonderful with all the books and soft animal toys out to accompany them. As well as the many donkeys  there were cows, sheep,  a dog, (Room for a Little One),  a cat (Cat in the Manger), a camel (The Last Straw), a hare (Hare's Christmas Gift), and even birds (The Birds of Bethlehem) and spiders (Spider's Gift: A Christmas Story).

Today I had a catch up with the donkey-mad teacher and her two small girls and we talked about Christmas books as she is doing the 25 days till Christmas with her girls, unwrapping a book to read each night. She said that she had tried to buy the donkey book but it was out of print and then she wanted to know the name of a book to buy about the origin of tinsel and we had a chat about Cobweb Christmas  and the other versions of this story. There are just so many wonderful picture books about Christmas and it does seem such a shame that they only really get an airing (reading) at Christmas. Our school year finishes so early in December that for some books that means they're only read once.

Here's what the library has about donkeys that were present at Christmas:
• The Little Donkey by Gerda Scheidl and Bernadette Watts
• The Lion, the Unicorn and Me by Jeanette Winterson and Rosalind MacCurrach
• Ruby the Christmas Donkey by Mirabel Cecil and Christina Gascoigne
• Father Christmas and the Donkey by Elizabeth Clark and Jan Ormerod
• The Donkey's First Christmas by Susanne T. Schroder
• The Ox and the Donkey by Gunter Spang and Loek Koopmans
• Little Donkey's Wish by Udo Weigelt and Pirkko Vainio
• The Donkey's Dream by Barbara Helen Berger
and some newer ones still available to purchase
• Father Christmas and the Donkey by Elizabeth Clark and Ari Jokinen
(the same story as above but with new illustrations instead of Jan Ormerod's)
• The Christmas Story as Told by Assellus the Christmas Donkey by Janet Duggan and Catherine Robertson
• Mary's Little Donkey by Gunhild Sehlin and Helene Muller

And stories about the spider and the origins of tinsel
• Cobweb Christmas by Shirley Climo and Jane Manning
• The Christmas Spider's Miracle by Trinka Hakes Noble and Stephen Constanza
• The Spider's Gift: A Ukranian Christmas Story by Eric A. Kimmel and Katya Krenina